It's not quite like getting your name inscribed on the Stanley Cup, but at the gym where Canadian mogul skiing aces Jenn Heil and Alex Bilodeau work out in Montreal, there's a pail always at the ready for an athlete about to heave the contents of their stomach because they've pushed themselves so hard.

"It's our puking bucket of fame," said coach Dominick Gauthier. "Anybody using it, you put your name and the date on it."

Heil and Bilodeau have used it often this summer.

That's the thing about Canada's winter athletes. We tend not to pay them much attention until they show up at the Olympics, yet their most excruciating work is done during the summer. In getting ready for the 2010 Vancouver Games, they've been pushing themselves to – and over – the limit.

These are people definitely suffering for their art.

Take cross-country skier Devon Kershaw, for instance. He dreads nothing more than the mind-numbing and body-draining treadmill tests his team undergoes.

"One thing about these tests that makes them so difficult and hard mentally is the fact that in this instance man cannot beat the machine," said Kershaw. "No matter what your shape, mental toughness ... the treadmill keeps getting steeper and faster until it completely crushes your spirit."

Kershaw tries to stay focused on a photo of late American distance runner Steve Prefontaine he's placed above one of the treadmills. What rivets Kershaw is the haunting look in the runner's eyes as he withstands the pain and pushes himself to victory.

"It does end," said Kershaw of the test. "But the hum of that treadmill is enough to make me shiver."

Patrick Chan has the cold of the ice rink to make him shiver. Even on the recent Labour Day holiday, the Toronto figure skater could be found toiling on the ice at the Richmond Training Centre.

After all, there's the new long program to keep honing, an elusive quadruple toe to try to nail, so much to still refine.

The 18-year-old Canadian champion proves himself to be human, tumbling to the ice more times than he'd care to count.

Snowboarder Justin Lamoureux is nursing a severely sprained ankle back home in Squamish, B.C., an injury suffered recently in New Zealand that kept him out of the World Cup half-pipe event there.

He hurt himself attempting a variation of the "double cork," a trick that's sweeping his sport and that he and others believe will have to be part of their arsenal to win an Olympic medal.

"Trying to stay at the forefront of what's happening in the half-pipe, you have to be willing to pay the price to learn the tricks," said Lamoureux.

Paying the price. It's a familiar theme. The summer is the time to get mileage on the difficult technical elements. Canada's freestyle aerialists have spent the past four months on the water ramps in Lac Beauport, Que., working on the jumps they hope to use in Vancouver. They can take risks they can't take on snow because the water is more forgiving and the conditions are more consistent.

"It's very intense mentally because there's a lot of action," said coach Daniel Murphy. "You're trying to elevate the confidence of the athlete."

One thing that boosts confidence is knowing you're in top shape going into the winter season.

"When you're into these long seasons where you're doing a World Cup every weekend, then you've got to be able to rev the engine back up, you've got to be able to manage that," said Scott Livingston, the former Montreal Canadiens' strength trainer who works with a number of Olympians including Heil and Bilodeau.

"So, the off-season is the time to get the engine and the whole body as strong and prepared as possible and then in season you just try to maintain it while you apply your trade, so to speak."

Most of the teams try to build some fun into their programs. For the long-track speed skaters, it was the chance to go rowing together under the guidance of the national rowing team. Matt Price, strength trainer for the Canadian Alpine team, set up a week of hockey camp for the men's team with former NHLers as their instructors.

"You have a bunch of guys who probably haven't been on skates more than 20 times in their lives and they're out there being coached by Felix Potvin, who most of them remember from when they were a kid, going through drills just like a real hockey team would," said Price. "To see them so far out of their element. They were really humbled by it. They listened to every word."

But fun isn't a word most athletes would use to describe the training.

Speed skating aces Clara Hughes and Kristina Groves could be seen grimacing through a series of squatting exercises under the watchful eye of trainer Matt Jordan at the Richmond Olympic Oval back in June. Neither one seemed to want any part of it, but they leaned on each other for support. Misery does love company in this case.

"I'm retraining the brain right now to get back to the point of being able to accept pain," said Hughes. "It takes awhile. Being aerobically fit is awesome. Being able to ride five or six hours a day is the best thing in the world, that's not hard.

"But going max or doing speed squats, the stuff we do for skating, imitations, is so hard and painful and it never feels good. It's crazy."

Nor should it feel good, says Livingston.

"Basically what these athletes do on a daily basis is they go beyond the threshold of discomfort that most people when they're exercising don't even want to touch," said the veteran strength coach.

"When you get on the cardio machines, they have this warning on the thing: `If you feel nauseous or sick to your stomach or dizzy, you should get off it.' These athletes often do it to themselves to see what they're capable of doing. It's not every day, it's not every workout, but there's certainly points in their schedule where they have to test their mettle and see what they're capable of doing."

Heil and Bilodeau do their cardio work on bikes hooked up to computers. There is a screen in front of them and a set goal in terms of wattage to be achieved for each part of the workout.

"You can't lie," said Bilodeau. "You can't say, `Oh, I'm working hard today' or `I feel tired.' The numbers are there and you have to achieve certain numbers."

And sometimes those numbers lead to a trip to the bucket.

"When you're going for the bucket, you went to the very bottom, you give your very best for that training," said Bilodeau. "That's important. There's a certain pride for sure but before you get to that point it's really painful. You're pushing yourself to the very limit."

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